A doctor at Lilavati Hospital has used the bio-absorbing stent to give relief to an 83-year-old woman from severe leg pain that had kept her confined to the bed for two years. The pain was caused because of the blockages in her leg arteries below the leg joint. The stent, for which multinational firm Abbott Vascular got approval from the Drug Controller General of India in 2012, is generally used only for coronary heart diseases.
Dr Shahid Merchant, interventional cardiologist, who performed the surgery at Lilavati Hospital said: “The blockage happened because of thickening of the arteries; diabetes, hypertension and old age being the risk factors. We decided to use the soluble stent in her case because of her age. So far, no one has used this stent below knee.” The patient, Pauline Gonsalves of Kalina, was being treated by an orthopaedic and had been referred to a spine expert too before the family realised that the pain was due to artery blockage.
“There was no pulse in her right leg. Investigations found that one of the three arteries in her right leg had 95% blockage. We used two soluble stents to remove the blockage,” said Dr Merchant. He had used the soluble stent as in other methods there is chances of the blockage recurring, the doctor said. “At her age, the soluble stent has more benefits,” he added. Gonsalves is now home and can walk without support.
Not all health experts are convinced, however. Some said without firm scientific data it would not be advisable to advocate the use of soluble stent for non-coronary heart diseases. Unlike in metallic stent, soluble stent has certain advantages: a patients will not need to take two blood-thinning medicines for years on end; he/she can undergo another operation (hip replacement, etc) without the risk of excessive bleeding.
How it works
The soluble stent works much like the common vascular stent (metallic) at first, restoring blood flow to a clogged vessel and administering the drug, everolimus. However, as it's made of polylactide, a common material in dissolving sutures, it'll be absorbed by the body over time, leaving behind a treated vessel free to move, flex, pulsate and dilate. It starts dissolving after a year and by two years it would have dissolved completely.
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